


Noblesse Garde

by gloria_scott



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, ToT: Chocolate Box, ToT: Extra Treat, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloria_scott/pseuds/gloria_scott
Summary: Lestrade asks for Mycroft's help getting to the bottom of the strange goings on at his new flat.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csichick_2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csichick_2/gifts).



“I'm sorry Detective Inspector, I couldn't possibly do that,” Mycroft said. The pair were partaking of an early morning breakfast at a small cafe several blocks from the Yard. Other patrons trickled in in ones and twos, still well ahead of the rush hour crowd.

Mycroft reached for his coffee, acutely aware of Lestrade sitting across from him, leaning forward and pinning him with an expectant gaze. Clearly, he would have to give a reason for his refusal.

“It would be a flagrant abuse of government resources and highly unethical.”

The derisive snort that erupted from Lestrade made Mycroft start, nearly spilling coffee down his silk tie.

“You've got to be joking!” Lestrade said, pointedly adding, “Mr. Holmes.”

Mycroft nearly winced. He hadn't meant to slip back into more formal address, but Lestrade's unusual request had thrown him a bit off his game.

“I'm sorry Greg, but I'm afraid I'm not.”

“Mycroft,” Lestrade said, following his lead again, “do I really need to remind you of all the extra curricular surveillance you've pulled on that brother of yours?”

“That was relevant to national security,” Mycroft protested.

“And John?”

“That was relevant to Sherlock.”

“And me?”

“Yes, well,” Mycroft shifted uncomfortably, then allowed himself a wry smile. “That was relevant to other things.”

“Such as?” Lestrade teasingly demanded.

“Well,” Mycroft said and paused, looking down at the coffee in his hands, “me, of course.” He was feeling slightly off kilter again. Somehow, this man had a way of getting under his skin like no one else ever had.

Lestrade grinned. “Right. Your idea of romance I suppose?”

Mycroft looked up and met Lestrade's warm, brown eyes. He'd found his footing again.

“No, my idea of romance is a bottle of Chateau Mouton Bordeaux shared over dinner, a late night private tour of the Tate Modern, followed by terrific sex and capped off with a quiet breakfast before work.”

Lestrade smiled, remembering the high points of their evening together. “Fair enough. So we've established that I mean something to you.”

“A great deal, in fact.”

Lestrade's eyebrows raised slightly at that admission, but he pressed on.

“Then why won't you do this for me?”

Mycroft let out an exasperated sigh. “Do I really need to say this? Because ghosts aren't real!”

“The hell they aren't!”

Lestrade's outburst caused a couple sitting several tables away to look over at them.

“Greg, please,” Mycroft said softly, hoping to get Lestrade to lower his voice by lowering his own. “I find it difficult to believe that someone in your profession – one who must deal in facts not fantasies as a matter of course – would be so...”

“I know what I saw!” Lestrade replied, still a touch louder than Mycroft would have preferred. “And what I felt. There's something in that flat.”

He must have let slip a disbelieving look, because Lestrade's brow crinkled in an angry furrow and he jabbed a forefinger at the table between them. “You saw those marks on my back. How do you explain those, eh?”

Mycroft opened his mouth to respond but Lestrade held up a hand to stop him.

“No, never mind. You're just going to piss me off again.”

Indeed, he had seen the marks last night: four angry red welts, possibly scratches, deep enough to have drawn blood. The only thing that had come close to marring their nearly perfect evening was, when prompted for an explanation, Lestrade launching into an outlandish account of nightmares, objects moving of their own accord, shadowy figures, and being accosted by an invisible assailant in his bedroom the night before. Of course, Mycroft didn't think he was lying, but there had to be a reasonable explanation for all of it. Whether Lestrade wanted to hear it or not.

Still, he thought it best to remain silent on the matter for the time being.

“Okay, look,” Lestrade started in again. “You're right about needing facts, and that's why I'm asking. It's the gathering of facts that I need help with.”

“But you have access to surveillance equipment yourself...”

Lestrade waved him away. “Yeah, yeah, but that's a load of paperwork and I'm sure you have better equipment and ways around all that. Plus, I need backup. Two sets of eyes on this will be better than one.”

Mycroft said nothing and fiddled with the edge of the napkin poking out from under his coffee cup. When he met Lestrade's gaze again, he knew he wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.

Lestrade moved his hand across the table until he was nearly touching Mycroft's, close enough for him to feel the warmth of it. He stopped fiddling.

“I just need you to set up some of your high tech gear in my flat. One night. That's all I'm asking. Please.”

Mycroft felt the last of his defenses finally give way.

“Alright, fine. I'll send a team over there to set up this afternoon. Come round my office after your shift and we'll see what's what.”

“Thank you.” Lestrade breathed a sigh of relief and sank back into his chair. He drank his coffee while Mycroft dashed off marching orders to one of his surveillance team leads.

They continued their breakfast without another word about it, yet all the while Mycroft's uneasiness grew. He could readily dismiss the bulk of Lestrade's story. The flat was in a drafty pre-war building; strange noises and eerie shadows were to be expected. And Lestrade was still unused to living alone. It hadn't been that long since the split with his wife, which brought up a potential emotional aspect to the occurrences as well.

The marks, however, were a legitimate cause for concern. There had to be a mundane explanation, but the mundane explanation would necessarily point to a living, breathing threat rather than a supernatural one.

No, he had made the right decision. It would ease Lestrade's mind, and his own, to get to the bottom of it all.

***

It was nearly ten o'clock when Lestrade arrived, ushered in to Mycroft's office by the overnight security guard. The smell of Chinese takeaway wafted out from the two brown bags he was carrying.

“What's this?” Mycroft said, only just realizing he had quite forgotten to eat since his late lunch with the Home Secretary.

“I figured dinner's on me tonight,” Lestrade replied with a grin.

He unpacked the paper cartons and distributed the utensils. Mycroft opted for the wooden chopsticks over the plastic ware. Lestrade gently chided him about it before turning his attention to the monitors on the desk.

“Anything yet?”

There were two LCD monitors showing his empty flat. One was split in four panels showing living room, bedroom, kitchen, and hallway. The other showed an infrared camera feed of just his bedroom, since that was where the bulk of the alleged activity had taken place.

“All's quiet,” Mycroft said.

They dug in, and Lestrade chatted about his relatively uneventful day. Mycroft's daily activities were, of course, mostly classified and not a topic for idle chatter.

After an hour or so they fell silent. The office around them had settled into silence as well. Most everyone had gone home, although there was an occasional sound of shuffling footsteps in the corridor – this bit of the government never truly slept.

Lestrade was an old hand at stakeouts and could probably weather the boredom of a long night of tedious surveillance video better than most. Tonight, though, he looked knackered: rumpled shirt, tie askew, dark smudges under heavy-lidded eyes. A week of long hours and disrupted sleep had clearly taken their toll. Mycroft was just about to suggest grabbing a couple of coffees, or indeed calling it a night and going home, when a loud thud came from the audio feed. He turned towards the monitors and they both leaned in, trying to discern the source of the noise.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then both of them shot bolt upright and out of their chairs.

“What the devil?” Mycroft said.

“Did you see that?” Lestrade said at the same time.

They stood frozen, then Lestrade grabbed his arm and pulled him around to look at him.

“You saw that, didn't you? Tell me you did!”

“Well, I saw something.”

“Can you rewind and replay it while it's still recording?”

Mycroft nodded and sat back down. He pulled up just the bedroom footage on both monitors, going back to the point just before they had heard the thudding noise. Only then did he notice that the infrared feed showed that the temperature in the far corner of the room had dropped several degrees.

“Slow it down!” said Lestrade.

Mycroft clicked a button and they watched the scene on the monitors unfold frame by frame. The darkness in the corner of the bedroom deepened and coalesced into a shadowy form, not quite man-high. It seemed to emerge from the wall, gliding across to the bed and then back again, before melting back into the wall.

Mycroft was not the type to be easily rattled. And yet, he could feel the hackles on his neck rise and his heart rate kick up.

“Jesus Christ,” Lestrade muttered, wide-eyed and clearly shaken.

Mycroft played the footage back several more times, and then he leaned back in his chair.

“Well, Mr. Holmes, what have you to say to that?”

Mycroft's mind was spinning contingency plans to further investigate and – hopefully – debunk what he'd just seen. He wasn't totally on board with the haunting theory. However, if he were being honest, he was more than 50% on board with it now. No need to let on to Lestrade his lingering skepticism, though.

“I apologize for doubting you,” he said, “but you do understand that I needed to see with my own eyes?”

“Sure. I'd have probably felt the same if our situations were reversed. No hard feelings.”

They sat silently again, watching the monitors for another hour or so. Nothing else happened.

Mycroft was the first to stir. “I suppose we can call it a night. We'll continue recording and I can look through the footage tomorrow to see if anything else shows up.”

“Yeah, it's pretty late.”

There was an awkward silence in which neither seemed willing to be the first to make the move to leave.

“There's no way in hell I'm going back to that flat alone tonight – or possibly ever. You know that, right?” Lestrade finally said.

Mycroft smiled. “You are welcome to stay at mine. As long as you like.” He stood up and took a few steps towards the door. “There's a car waiting downstairs. Shall we?”

“Surely!” Lestrade laughed, following him. “I don't suppose you know any good ghost exterminators or whatever they're called. Exorcists, maybe?”

“I'll have my PA look into it.”

He handed Lestrade his coat and Lestrade took it, but instead of putting it on he moved closer and pressed his lips to Mycroft's. It took a moment for Mycroft to register and warm to the kiss, unexpected as it was. All too soon, Lestrade pulled away, leaving him with a quiet yearning he hoped would be sated later that evening.

“Thanks,” Lestrade said.

“For...?”

“All this.” He waved towards the monitors. “And for believing me. I felt a right nutter even bringing it up to you.”

“Perfectly understandable, all things considered, but I'll always help if I can. You know that, right?”

Lestrade nodded and grinned, then moved towards the door. Mycroft followed. Before flipping the lights off he paused and looked back at the monitors on his desk. This far removed from his initial shock and adrenaline response, his skepticism had started to grow again. There was probably some reasonable explanation for what they had seen, and he had the resources to throw at this mystery to get to the bottom of it.

Still, he felt deeply unsettled. His instincts, which were seldom wrong, told him that something was gravely amiss in that flat. Whoever or whatever it was could not be allowed to put hands on Lestrade again – invisible or otherwise. Regardless of what world his adversary existed in, he'd stop at nothing to keep those who were dear to him safe.

With this resolve firmly in mind, Mycroft turned off the lights to his office and hurried down the corridor to where Lestrade stood waiting.

 

END


End file.
